Online
charter schools are a promising new innovation that’s providing an expanded
range of educational opportunities for a growing number K-12 students.
Unfortunately, many states, including Michigan,
restrict those benefits by capping the number of students who can take
advantage of these “virtual” schools.

A
recent news story
from Louisiana
demonstrates how out-of-touch these artificial enrollment caps are with market
demand: One online charter school is being forced to turn away about 1,300
students due to such caps.

It’s
happening here, too. In this
video, the principal of a Michigan online charter school notes that
he had thousands of students wanting to get it, but by law could let only 400 through
the schoolhouse portal.

A recent Mackinac Center study
of online learning in Michigan argues that these caps do virtually
nothing to ensure educational quality, and actively prohibit saving taxpayer
dollars, given that online charter schools generally cost less to operate. Just one group
benefits from such caps: Incumbent employees of the entrenched “brick-and-mortar” public school monopoly.

Michigan should stop
shorting-changing parents when it comes to expanding educational choices. Every
student in an online charter school is there for one reason: A parent made a deliberate choice based on his or her uniquely well-qualified
knowledge of what’s best for his or her child. The politicians of this state or
any other have no valid reason to artificially limit the number of children
able to take advantage of this opportunity.

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